Product and project management

Webinar Recap: Better, Faster, and More Flexible—U.S. Web Design Standards Update

The Road to Launch Version 1.0 You may have noticed a new, cleaner, and more modern look to some government websites over the last year—these are the web properties that were early adopters of the Draft U.S. Web Design Standards from 18F, the digital services agency which is part of the General Services Administration (GSA).

Lisa Bari

Feb 09, 2017

DigitalGov Year in Review: Our Top Blogs, Resources, and Writers for 2016

DigitalGov had a pretty great year in 2016, and that was largely due to a bevy of talented and dedicated writers from over 50 agencies and departments across all 3 branches of the federal government (Thank you!!!). Below, we’ll review some program highlights from the last year, including our top-viewed articles and resources, and tell you how you, too, can contribute to DigitalGov in 2017.

Toni Bonitto

Feb 03, 2017

Automatic HTTPS Enforcement for New Executive Branch .gov Domains

HTTPS is a necessary baseline for security on the modern web. Non-secure HTTP connections lack integrity protection, and can be used to attack citizens, foreign nationals, and government staff. HTTPS provides increased confidentiality, authenticity, and integrity that mitigate these attacks.

Eric Mill

Marina Fox

Jan 19, 2017

The Life-Changing Magic of Writing Release Notes

A key part of agile development is constantly shipping new features. The team behind the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) beta website ships new features at least once every two weeks. Sometimes the features are big, noticeable changes, such as the new home page we recently launched. And other times they’re small (a copy edit, an

Noah Manger

Jan 19, 2017

DigitalGov University in Review: 2016 Training Trends

Thanks to your participation, DigitalGov University (DGU), the events platform for DigitalGov, hosted over 90 events with 6,648 attendees from over 100 agencies across federal, tribal, state, and local governments.

Janelle Thalls

Jan 11, 2017

Five Lessons Learned During a Content Audit

As part of USAGov’s efforts to provide our audience with the reliable and quality information that they need, this summer, the Health, Education & Benefits (HE&B) topic desk completed its first content audit. Methodology and Results Data informed every step we took. In order to determine which areas to focus on first, the desk gathered

Andrea M. Castelluccio

Dec 05, 2016

In a Marketing Minute: Connecting Teams, Promotions, and Ideas

Every first week of every month, USAGov’s marketing team sends an office-wide email newsletter to give an update on past and current marketing efforts and campaigns. It’s how we try to help keep the rest of the office in the know. The monthly newsletter can spur a content idea, a future marketing endeavor, and act

Victoria Bitzer-Wales

Dec 05, 2016

FIPNet Digital Imaging Partner Guidance Now Available

Guidance for Contributing Digital Content to FDsys (govinfo) is now available on FDLP.gov. Federal Information Preservation Network (FIPNet) digital imaging partners now have guidance documentation for creating and contributing digitally-imaged U.S. Government content to Federal Digital System (FDsys)/govinfo*. The guidance specifications are based on current best practices from the Federal Agency Digitization Guidelines Initiative and

Federal Depository Library Program

Dec 02, 2016

The Future of Technology at GSA

The potential to transform government and impact the lives of Americans is tremendous. Our country needs the government to work well, and technology is the key to that.

GSA Blog Team

Dec 02, 2016

Lessons Learned: Evaluating Video Content

If you were to perform research on the value proposition of training videos, you would notice that opinions are split on their efficacy. Despite all the tools that are out there that can help you evaluate video quality, views, and drop-off, there are some things that should be considered in the analysis of your organization’s

Tim Jakubowski

Dec 01, 2016

I’m taking a break from sorting through dozens of concepts from federal agencies about how they want to use artificial intelligence and virtual reality for citizens in the coming months in order to share with you just some of these groundbreaking initiatives of tomorrow that can be explored at a DigitalGov University workshop this week.

Justin Herman

Nov 30, 2016

Health IT Services SIN — Ready to Serve Agencies

This summer I announced the the release of our new Health IT Services Special Item Number (SIN 132–56) on IT Schedule 70. Now, I am happy to report that the SIN has been awarded to 65 highly qualified industry partners — with that number continuing to grow daily as new contracts are being awarded. With such a

Mary Davie

Nov 29, 2016

Digging Deep Using the Core Model

The core model is a thinking tool that can be used to get team members from different perspectives (stakeholders, developers, editors, etc.) to start thinking collaboratively. The end goal is that the group will have a common understanding of user needs, business goals, and how different pages should be connected.

Christen Geiler

Nov 18, 2016

New Trademark App Open Source Code on GitHub

Improving the way the government delivers information technology (IT) solutions to its customers isn’t just a goal, it’s our mission. We at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office know that by publishing our open source code, the public can help us come up with new and better IT solutions. In advance of the new Federal

David Chiles

Nov 18, 2016

FEMA’S Syndicated Content: Digital Assists in Moments of Disaster

I recently interviewed Daniel Kuhns, Web Manager at FEMA, about the site widgets and the FEMA app his organization has been developing. The widgets currently available include: FEMA App, Preparedness, Severe Weather, Private Sector, Kids Fire Safety, and Are you a Disaster Survivor. The FEMA App offers

Christen Geiler

Nov 17, 2016

Congress.gov Homepage Highlights, Alerts, and More Enhancements

This has been an exciting and successful year for Congress.gov. We accomplished a major milestone when we retired THOMAS in July. Over the course of 2016, we completed a number of enhancements to Congress.gov. In April we expanded quick search to include the Congressional Record, Committee Reports, Nominations, Treaty Documents, and Communications. In May we launched several new RSS feeds and

Andrew Weber

Nov 16, 2016

Hualapai Public Safety Meet Old and New Challenges Through Technology

How can a place be remote and virtually unpopulated, yet constantly full of thousands of people and teeming with activity? It certainly seems impossible, but that is exactly the situation at Grand Canyon West (GCW), home of the Hualapai indigenous Indian Tribe and the famous Skywalk.

Lesia Dickson

Nov 14, 2016

NASA Addresses OMB M-16-21 Federal Source Code Policy

In August 2016, OMB released M-16-21, which seeks to ensure that new custom-developed federal source code be made broadly available for reuse across the federal government.

Jason Duley

Nov 10, 2016

The Data Briefing: Four Steps to Becoming a Data-Driven Organization

As the Federal government agencies begin the digital transformation journey, becoming a data-driven organization is even more vital. What does it mean to become a data-driven organization? According to one definition, “[a] data-driven company is an organization where every person who can use data to make better decisions, has access to the data they need

Bill Brantley

Nov 09, 2016

Challenge.gov Launches One-Click Reporting for Annual Prizes Data Call

This year, the deadline for agencies to submit their reporting of incentive prize competitions and challenges for FY16 comes earlier than most. Roughly two weeks from today, by Nov. 18, federal agencies are required to submit their accounts of every prize, competition, or challenge that launched, ran or completed in FY16 via email.

Tammy White

Nov 09, 2016

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